Mes petits choux

Inspired by the Daring Bakers who churned out dozens and dozens of Pierre Herme's eclairs earlier in the month, and faced with an open spot on my finger foods menu for the house warming I decided it was time to try making pate a choux again. Pate a choux is one of the few pastry doughs I haven't been instantaneously successful at.

My former friend M used to make a fabulous polish dessert named after the mountains of Poland. That dessert, which I haven't though of since I was in high school consists of layers of choux paste spread over a baking sheet and baked until crisp. Since the dough steams during the baking process the layer rises unevenly resulting in the "mountains". The layers are then sandwiched together with a vanilla pudding in the approximation of a pastry cream. So it's like an eclair... only more rustic. However, when I tried it I found the result entirely too eggy and the pudding filling was too sweet - which turned me off the idea entirely. My following attempt at gougeres was equally abysmal and I'd given up on the idea entirely.

Then the Daring Bakers put on their masterful display and I thought "If all of them, all over the world can master this dough, then maybe I should try it again." I'm glad I did. Doing so resulted in the wonderful discovery of a dessert that my friend P actually likes. P is one of those boys who is utterly satisfied with a big plate of protein, and maybe some carbs as a garnish. He dislikes vegetables, and is utterly averse to dessert. To have found one that he actually likes, and will consume, is nothing short of miraculous. It almost makes up for the fact that I had to beat this 10 egg dough by hand. Yes, entirely by hand since I discovered just after combining the flour and hot liquid that my electric beaters had shorted out. I almost cried. Then I sucked it up and decided to forge ahead.

They were delicious and vanished rather quickly. By far, the hit of the evening, which makes them almost worth it.

The recipe for the pate a choux is my reworking (by which I mean I was running between my laptop and the stove and so there was some improvisation) of the Pierre Herme version. Since I added a hit of cinnamon to the pastry I decided to follow that up with a ginger pastry cream because once I start improvising I don't see reason to stop.

For the original Daring Baker's version please see Meeta's Blog, What's for Lunch, Honey?

Cinnamon Ginger Cream Puffs

Ingredients:

1 recipe of pate a choux (see below)
1 recipe of ginger pastry cream (see below)
1 recipe of chocolate ganache (see below)

Process:
1. Once the choux have cooled, slice them in half.
2. Fill with a teaspoon of cold pastry cream.
3. Freeze until firm.
4. Dip the tops in the ganache, or use a fork and drizzle the ganache over (depending on how heavy a coating of chocolate you're looking for).
5. Chill for another 10 minutes in the freezer.
6. Serve - or leave in the freezer for your guests to sneak out at intervals.

Pate a Choux

Ingredients:
1.5 cups of water
1 cup of milk
8 oz of butter, cut into cubes
4 tbsp of sugar
1 tsp of salt
1/2 tsp of cinnamon
2 cups of flour
8 eggs

Process:
1. Combine the water, milk, butter, sugar, salt and cinnamon in a large pot. Bring to a boil over medium heat.
2. Once the butter has melted, and the mixture is at a rolling boil, dump in the flour all at once and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon. The mixture will combine and form a ball, peeling itself off the bottom of the pan, but leaving a thin film behind. This is good.
3. If you have electric beaters, break them out. If not, square your shoulders and prepare for a work out.
4. Break an egg, beat it to homogenize and then pour it over the hot choux dough. Beat the dough vigorously with your beaters or spoon. It will go all sick and shiny first, but as it absorbs the egg will return to it's lovely sticky state. Continue until you have used all of the eggs. If you are using a spoon feel free to take breaks in between. Your dough will not suffer too much.
5. It is important that you shape the dough while it is warm. If you are using a piping bag, fit it with your widest tip and fill it with the warm dough. You can pipe these into any shape you'd like. If you are not using a piping bag you can do what I did and try and make quenelles with two spoons, or do what I did later and dollop teaspoons of dough onto a foil lined greased baking sheet.
6. You can freeze these - or bake them immediately. The total baking time is 20 minutes. I bake them for 10 minutes and then propped the oven door open with a wooden spoon handle and baked them for another 10, flipping the trays at the 15 minute mark.
7. Once baked, remove the puffs from the oven and poke a hole in the side of each one. This will release the steam in the puff and they will stay crunchy as they cool.


Ginger Pastry Cream

Ingredients:
2 cups of milk
0.5 inch of ginger chopped into shards
6 tbsp of sugar
3 whole eggs beaten
3 tbsp of corn starch

Process:
1. Combine the milk and ginger in a microwave safe container. Bring to a boil and let cool, allowing the flavour form the ginger to infuse into the milk. Let cool and once cold remove the ginger. Alternately you can mince the ginger finely and leave it in the milk.
2.In a saucepan, combine the corn starch and sugar. Whisk to homogenize. Pour in the milk and whisk to dissolve.
3. In a separate container, beat the eggs to homogenize.
4. Heat the milk mixture over medium heat, whisking frequently. Once the mixture starts to steam ladle a spoonful into the eggs, pouring it in a thin stream and whisking the eggs constantly in order to temper them. Repeat a couple of times.
5. Pour the eggs into the mixture. From here on it, whisk constantly. It may seem like it will never thicken, but it will go from fluid to thick and spitting quickly. If you stop whisking it will get a little lumpy. You can salvage it by straining it, but it's easier not to have to do so.
6. Once the mixture is thick and glossy chill it down until you are ready to work with it. If you aren't a fan of pudding skin feel free to press a layer of cling film on the surface of the cream.


Chocolate Ganache

Ingredients:
150gm of dark chocolate
5 tbsp of milk
1 tbsp of butter

Process:
1. Combine the ingredients in a microwave safe container.
2. Nuke for 15 seconds and stir.
3. Repeat until the chocolate melted and smooth.
4. Use immediately or chill and drizzle.

Dinner at the Drake

One of my favourite parts of being an intern at the NFP I was hired by this summer were the event related perks. As an intern I occasionally felt like I was schlepping for no good reason and that I could be making much better use of my time. I was terribly frustrated and every so often contemplated throwing in the towel. I didn't though, because whenever it felt like things were getting to be a bit too much we'd have a fabulous event that I'd get to attend gratis.

After the festival was done the staff convened for one final hurrah at the Drake Hotel in Toronto. I don't know why I'd never been to the Drake before. Compared to it's neighbour the Gladstone, the Drake always seemed a bit stuck up, and more importantly, a bit too hipster for me. However, since the Drake had contra left over, that's where we were having dinner. The menu was a lovely standard 3 course with 3 options for each.


We started with a lovely prosecco to toast our sucess - and a sexy little sushi amuse. While the tuna was cut a bit thick for me, the lightly brined ginger (white - not that shocking pink) was very very refreshing and I'm tempted to learn to make it myself. The vegetable rolls were also delicious.

While the beet salad with chevre sounded incredibly tempting - and I love beets - I opted for the charcuterie plate because I prefer salty protein to sugar, and more importantly there were olives involved. Granted when the plate came out the olives were the green variety (not my first choice) but the seasonal fruit were lovely Ontario cherries. Few things can make me happier that beautiful local cherries. The foccacia was lightly toasted and drizzled with a rosemary olive oil. The charcuterie was deliciously salty and went perfectly with the sexy red they were serving (the name of which I forgot to note)


Following the charcuterie were a standard vegetarian pasta option, or a quarter roast chicken with sweet corn and heirloom tomatoes, or beef short ribs au jus with creamy smashed potatoes and lobster mushrooms. My choice was a pretty straight forward one. Mushrooms and beef are two of the things I most adore in the world and the notion of smashed potatoes was just too much to resist. Laced with salted butter and wonderfully creamy they were perfect.

Dessert was a tough choice for me...on offer were both a blissful sounding sticky toffee pudding, which I would have picked without a thought save for the fact that of late I've had a bit too much of the Haagen Dasz stucky toffee pudding ice cream and so decided a break was in order. Thus I selected the chocolate and butter scotch pot de creme because I think pots de creme are darling. What I got, and I'll admit I was dissapointed, was a single chocolate pot de creme with a swirl of creme fraiche. While I love chocolate it seemed that this example had been sitting in the refirdgerator a bit too long and was coated with a thin layer of condensation. Further, and I probably should have said something about this, it was the butterscotch I was really looking forward to because I love the rich caramel notes it brings. Luckily, due to some concern on the part of my dining companions I got to sample the pudding.

There was talk of it being spicy - and not in a lovely ginger, clove, cinnamon kind of way. This was a hot, searing, uncomfortable kind of heat. So I tasted, and tasted and tasted some more. And then I realized - it wasn't the pudding - which was cookbook correct with dates and syrup. Instead it was the accompanying pecans - which they had candied with a little cayenne pepper. While this may make for a wonderfully interesting bar munchie - the cayenne mixed in with the heat of ginger and clove in the pudding was jarringly disconcerting.

Beyond that it was a fabulous meal in a beautiful venue. If you have the chance to dine at the Drake take it without a second thought. The service is lovely and thoughtful, the space is utterly gorgeous and the food is quite good. Maybe those hipsters are on to something.

The New York Times Cookie

These cookies have been making the blog rounds for a few weeks now, so I decided they were worth a shot. While they aren't terribly different from my standard recipe for classic chocolate chip cookie, the sugar content is markedly higher. I also decided to make these at 2am the night before leaving for a long weekend at a friend's cottage and so wasn't as patient as I could have been. Regardless, the rather long resting period did not make quite the difference other bloggers reported it did in that the supposedly caramelized/rich toffee notes didn't quite emerge.

Overall, I found the cookies a bit dry upon baking, but they do retain a remarkably shelf stable quality and taste a bit like a particular brand name store bought cookie up to a week after. I don't know that I will ever make them again, but they were fun to make the first time. Plus, I finally broke out my ice cream scoop to shape them and was highly amused at the fact that they retained their scoop shape.

Giant Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from the New York Times recipe, in turn adapted from Jacques Torres

Yield: Approximately 30 1.5" cookies.
Active Prep Time: 30 minutes
Inactive Prep Time: 36 hours ( to chill in the refrigerator)
Total Prep Time: 36.5 hours

Ingredients:
7 oz of all purpose flour
7 oz of whole wheat flour
3 oz of corn starch
1.25 teaspoons of baking soda
1.25 teaspoons of baking powder
8 oz of salted butter at room temperature
8 oz of brown sugar
8 oz of granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
1 lb of bittersweet chocolate chips

Process:
1. Combine the flours, corn starch, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl or measuring jug and whisk well to combine.

2. In a large bowl, combine the room temperature butter and the two sugars. Using an electric beater cream until fluffy and very pale in color. It should look like this. Once the mixture has reached this ethereal stage beat in the eggs one at a time. Following the eggs beat in the vanilla until completely amalgamated.

3. Switching from your hand held electric beaters to a wooden or metal spoon, gently mix in the flour. Be careful not to begin too vigorously or you will cover both yourself and the counter top in lovely white dust. The finished product should look something like this.

4. Stir in the chocolate chips and cover the dough tightly. Leave to rest in your refrigerator for anywhere from a minimum of 24 hours to a maximum of 72 hours. I suppose if you would like to leave it for longer than that, shape the aged dough into logs, which you can then wrap tightly in plastic wrap and freeze.

5. After your dough has aged, bring it to almost room temperature. You do not want to use it straight out of the fridge as the butter will be far too cold and the dough will be unworkable. Also, pre heat your oven to 350 degrees F.

6. Using an ice cream scoop to portion the slightly warmed dough, mound 6 scoops onto a parchment or tin foil lined baking sheet. Bake the scoops for approximately 15 to 18 minutes, checking every 30 seconds after the 15 minute mark. I found the cookies didn't spread very far and so judged level of doneness primarily by smell.

7. Cool the cookies on their baking trays for at least 5 minutes before moving them to a cooling rack.

8. Consume any which way you'd like ( I'm thinking crumbled into some vanilla fro-yo). These cookies keep well in airtight containers for up to a week.

Strawberry Fro - Yo

Last summer I spent the better part of a perfect June morning picking organic strawberries at this lovely farm in Milton. If I remember correctly, I picked about 14lbs in approximately 3 hours. There are few things more blissful in life than standing in acres of strawberry plants, the sun bronzing ones shoulders, and inhaling deep breaths of the highly perfumed air.

However, using 14lbs of strawberries is a daunting task. While some became strawberry shortcakes, and others became a beautiful sticky, sweet, darkly delicious strawberry and balsamic jam, most of the berries became freezer fodder.

This year, working the festival meant no time for laundry, much less berry picking and as a result I am working my way through the ones I stock piled last summer. Plus, in an effort to loose the Pride weight I've been staying away from ice cream as much as possible..which is difficult given the humidity. And then it occurred to me...fro yo! We already make a beautifully creamy yogurt in the restaurant...and I had vague recollections of Jamie Oliver doing something like this with very cold heavy cream and frozen berries.

So how do you make the best strawberry frozen yogurt...without an ice cream machine? With a blender...and frozen berries.

Virtually Instant Strawberry Fro Yo

Ingredients:
2 cups of frozen strawberries (mine are organic, picked and frozen from a lovely farm in Milton)
1 cup of yogurt (mine is from 2% milk, made in house at the restaurant)
1/2 - 3/4 cups of sugar (depending on the sweetness of the berries)

Process:
1. Combine the yogurt and the sugar and stir vigorously to dissolve.
2. Rough chop the berries and toss them into the blender.
3. Pour over the yogurt and blitz until combined. Stir occasionally to ensure an even blend.
4. Once the blend is uniform pour into a freezer safe container and chill for at least an hour - preferably five. Check in occasionally and give it a quick stir to break up the freezing along the sides.
5. Pile into cones, cups, spoons etc and enjoy.

Note: This is also blissful with pineapple, banana, mango and ginger (all of which I froze over the course of the year at various times). The added fibre from the banana and mango make for a creamier, less granita like product.